It's My Blog and I'll Cry If I Want To

Pin It Tonight after putting the kids in bed I sat down to make a list of the things I'm grateful for, hoping it would help me to put things in perspective.

(Sigh.)

Pretty much the only thing I came up with for today, specifically, was that nobody was attacked by rabid flying monkeys.

(It wasn't really a very inspiring list.)

After that, I made a list of things I could do to improve our situation:

- Find friends for my children
- Finish getting things organized
- Get them involved in activities to keep them busy and happy
- Binge a lot

Oh, I know it may not sound like it, but I really am trying so hard to hold it together. I'm trying to stay positive and trying to encourage them to "bloom where they're planted" as the cliche goes. I know this is a nice neighborhood, with perfectly nice people. I know we can be happy here. I'm not sure how or when, but I know it's possible.

In Relief Society (a church class for women) all of the women were friendly and kind - in the way that you're friendly and kind to new people before you go sit with your real friends. To be fair, I sat down by myself in the middle of the back row and didn't make an effort to talk to anyone around me. I'm not particularly shy, and normally I would have tried to reach out a little, but I was feeling beaten down by life and self-indulgently sorry for myself, so I sat there and pouted instead.

A playgroup sign-up list went around the room and I signed it, my hands clammy with anxiety. A PLAYGROUP. This might solve at least twelve of my problems. I had a million questions for the woman sitting in front of me (WHERE? WHEN? HOW SOON? TOMORROW? TONIGHT? WHEN?!!), but she didn't have any answers. (And possibly I scared her a little with my inappropriate intensity about the topic.)

If the playgroup doesn't pan out, I do have an emergency back-up plan. At church they handed out a list of women in the neighborhood complete with pictures and email addresses and I think I'm just going to make a complete freak of myself by emailing everyone in the ward. (Sometimes having no shame or sense of social decorum is a net positive.)

I even resorted to blog-stalking (after my sister-in-law spilled the blog addresses for a few of the women), leaving messages like, "Um, Hi, I live in your neighborhood, and I'm not weird or anything, but I just wanted to say Hi! P.S. I see from your blog that you have children. Would they like to come over this afternoon?" Oddly, they haven't responded. Apparently, contacting complete strangers on their blogs and inviting their children over to play is frowned upon in some circles.

The truth is, I'm not in the mood to start over - to gradually meet people, to eventually become friends with them, to even more eventually become very good friends with some of them. The thought of it (of having to wade through the small talk and artifice before we can get to know each other; of the whole back and forth and trial and error of developing new friendships) exhausts me. My heart is not in it. I know there are lots of wonderful, interesting people in our new neighborhood, and that in a year or so, I won't be able to imagine not knowing them. I know that.

Right now though? I just want my OLD friends back - people who know me and like me anyway. I miss my neighbors - who don't sprint for the garage as soon as they emerge from their cars. I miss being able to look out the back door and see a crowd of kids for my children to play with. I want my old neighborhood back - with trees and grass and open spaces. I want a fairy to descend from the sky, hand me a million dollars and make everything better. That's what I want.

(Closes eyes, makes wish:) Make it so.

(Opens eyes, looks around)

Drat.

Movement

Pin It I keep trying to write about leaving Utah, about leaving our neighborhood, about leaving our friends, about saying goodbye, about all of the wonderful gestures and genuinely sweet moments of friendship - and each time I try it makes me feel weepy. I'll write about it another day, when it doesn't make my throat ache and my eyes well up with tears.

We packed up our moving truck on Thursday night, drove to Las Vegas on Friday, and moved in on Saturday morning. I was relieved to see that the house (which I'd never seen in person) is really very nice. The dining room is carpeted, which perplexes me more than a little, but the kitchen is pretty amazing - full of appliances I have no earthly idea how to use. I'm not sure what to do with a convection microwave or a trivection oven. I don't even know what trivection means. I only know that I'm fairly certain that at some point, something will explode in there.

The kids are a little painfully tender right now. They keep crying over little things - little things that are really all about the same thing when you get right down to it. Carter cried tonight because he was nervous in his new room, and when I sat down next to him he told me he just wanted his old room back, and his old house, and his old toilet. Abby cried because we didn't have time today to go see her new baby cousin, who has the same name as her pre-school friend, a friend she "will never see again, never never never."

But then tonight after dinner my husband puttered around with a screwdriver, I organized stuff, Abby drew, Carter stripped down to his underwear and Sarah practiced the piano.

It was normal. It was good. It was almost boring.

I'm feeling hopeful. Cross your fingers for us.

For Sale

Pin It We put our house back on the market. We figure we might as well give it one last ditch effort, now that it's spring and the Utah market is starting to actually do something.

Hey! Maybe one of you would like to buy it, do ya think? Yes? Yes?

No?

Oh. Well, I'll show it to you anyway, since any internet stalkers lurking out there won't be able to track us down anyway - what with the whole MOVING thing. (DANG it.)

It's a lovely 4700 square foot home on a quarter acre with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a lovely hickory and alder kitchen with a travertine backsplash, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances... (Don't I sound JUST like a real estate flyer? It would make sense, since I've been trying to sell this flippin' house for the last YEAR.) (Um, sorry, did that sound bitter? I didn't really mean it to sound bitter. I'm not bitter at all. No siree. Not me.) (Stop looking at me like that.)

The house comes with a really fun backyard with a playset and lots of built-in friends for your children. (See the last few posts if you have any questions about my feelings on that topic.)


The home has beautiful finish work and custom paint (paint the homeowner picked out herself, because she was under the impression she would be LIVING there for the rest of her life and - - - - OOPS, sorry, having a moment there).
So anyway... Nice room.

The family room adjoins the kitchen and has a lovely stacked stone fireplace and alder mantle. I love the fireplace SO MUCH. (ACK, excuse me while I choke on the bile in my throat. Ahem. Sorry, I'm better now.)


There's other cool stuff, like a big playroom with a built-in window seat and a spacious basement for all of your random stuff, but I'll spare you the pictures.

Sigh.

Honestly, it's just a house. A house is a house is a house. And as much as I don't really want to leave,

I'm praying REALLY HARD that it sells. Quickly. Super quickly. Miraculously quickly even. Like, before the bank comes calling. Selling it won't solve our problems, but it would be nice to not completely destroy the property values for the folks who are still gonna live here after we leave.

But if we DO have to give it to the bank instead of selling it, would I be completely out of line to dismantle the fireplace rock by rock and take it with me to Las Vegas, do ya think?

Yeah, I thought so.